The Novel
by Broadwaylover5300
Summary: Amber tries her hand at writing a novel, only to find that it's not as easy as it looks. Amber/Shelley & IQ/Tammy!


**Hi! I just have a few things I want to say before I start!**

**First of all, this is just a short break from my iPod challenge! That's turning out to be mostly dramatic stuff and I wanted to write a comedy!**

**Second, although this is an Amber/Shelley story, I'm going to write it much in the same vein as one of my Amber/Corny comedies, so hopefully those of you who like those will like this too!**

**Third, this story probably takes place sometime around 1972, for Tammy and IQ are married in this story and IQ owns the apartment building in which all four of them live!**

**Fourth and probably most important, I'd like to dedicate this story to Tracy and Kelsey, two of the nicest people I've met on this site and the reigning queens of Amber/Shelley!  
**Amber sat in the living room of the four-room apartment that she and Shelley shared. She was alone, seeing as how Shelley was in the bedroom, preparing for the rehearsal for her nightly nightclub number that she had been doing ever since she and Amber had started living together. Amber didn't really notice what was going on, however, for she was too focused on what was pouring out of her portable typewriter that sat on the small desk by the phone. Her fingers flew, the typewriter clicked and rang at high speed, and there was a wild glint in Amber's eyes as her fingers flew.

Suddenly, Amber's almost hypnotic trance was broken as Tammy walked into the room.

"Good morning, Amber!" Tammy said cheerfully.

"Hello," Amber answered, still focusing her attention on the typewriter.

"What are you doing?" Tammy asked.

"Writing a novel," Amber replied.

"Oh," Tammy said automatically. "What?" Tammy added, once what Amber had said really set in. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm serious!" Amber replied. "I read in the paper that a woman got a ten thousand dollar royalty for her first novel!"

"And what does that have to do with you?" Tammy asked.

"I'm a woman, aren't I?" Amber shot back.

Tammy shook her head. "I don't think I want to read this masterpiece when you're done," she said.

Amber sniffed. "Okay! If you're gonna act that way, I'll just kill you off in chapter one!"

A smile spread across Tammy's face. "You mean I'm in it?" she grinned.

"Yeah, all of us are! You, me, Shelley and IQ!" Amber said. "This might become another _Gone with the Wind_, and that'll make you Scarlett O'Hara!" She then reached over, picked up a small notepad and pen and looked at Tammy. "What makes you tick?" she asked.

"Oh, well, since you asked…" Tammy began as she walked across the room. "Well, I'm much deeper than people think. On the outside, I'm always cheerful and happy. But down deeper, I'm a mess of emotions, sadness, disappointment, betrayal…" Tammy clutched her stomach for dramatic effect just as IQ walked in.

"What's the matter with you? You got a stomach ache?" he asked Tammy.

"For your information, Amber's writing a novel, and we're all gonna be in it!" Tammy replied. She jerked a thumb at IQ as she looked at Amber. "Why don't you ask him what makes him tick? He kind of creaks and rattles, too."

It was then that Shelley walked in, wearing a beautiful, flowing red dress. "Hey, Tammy! Hey, IQ! What's Amber doing?"

"Oh, I'm writing a novel," Amber replied nonchalantly.

"That's nice," Shelley replied without listening as she entered the kitchen, only to come bursting out. "What?!"

"Oh, Shelley, I'm glad you're up! There's a few questions I'd like to ask you," Amber said as she picked up her notebook. "How did you feel when you, a small, frightened Baltimore native, packed your one small bag that contained all our belongings and moved out here to New York-"

"Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" Shelley cut Amber off. "You know full well that I wasn't frightened at all! I knew I had the job at the club already, and we certainly didn't have one tiny bag! I seem to remember all your luggage filling up one baggage cart!"

"Well, not in my novel," Amber said as she turned back to her typewriter.

"Wait!" Shelley exclaimed. "You don't mean you're gonna put all that stuff in your novel, do you?"

"Of course I am!" Amber replied.

"But none of that stuff's true!" Shelley said.

"Of course not! That's what writers do! They take the truth and twist it a little!" Amber answered.

"Well, if your novel bombs, you can always get a job as a pretzel maker," IQ said as he reached for the already-full pages.

"Hold it!" Amber yelled as she stood up and slammed her hand down on the full pages. "A writer's work is sacred! Now, if you'll excuse me, the muse calls and I must answer." And with that, Amber sat down and began typing again.

xxx

"It's not in here," Shelley said as she closed the last desk drawer.

"Yeah, it's not anywhere in this living room," Tammy said as she finished looking in the front closet.

"Well, it's gotta be here somewhere! We've already looked in the bedroom and this room!" Shelley said. "Well, come on, let's try the kitchen." She, Tammy and IQ all went into the kitchen.

"IQ, if you were Amber's novel, where would you go?" Tammy asked as they all began searching.

"Well, if I were Amber's novel, I'd run down to the basement and jump in the furnace!" IQ replied as he looked around the stove. Sighing, he reached up to the window shades and pulled the cord, releasing Amber's novel all over the floor. The three of them gathered up all the pages and put them on the kitchen table.

"Oh, wait, I've got the title!" Shelley exclaimed as she picked up a sheet of paper. "'Real Gone with the Wind!'"

The three of them burst out laughing until Tammy picked up a piece of paper.

"Here's a part about me!" Tammy grinned as she began to read. "'Two of our dearest friends from Baltimore moved out to New York with us, one of which was a wonderful girl named Tammy Smits,'" Tammy read.

"Smits? That must be a typo," Shelley said.

"Oh, no, Amber told me she wasn't going to use our real names," Tammy replied.

"Oh, nobody will ever figure out who Tammy Smits is, oh, no," Shelley commented sarcastically.

Tammy's smile faded as she continued to read. "'As we grew up together, we became fast friends, despite the difference in our ages.'" Tammy rolled her eyes as she read on. "'Tammy soon grew very close to me, not just as a friend, not just as a neighbor, but as a mother," Tammy continued, only to do a double-take. "A mother?!" Shelley and IQ burst out laughing. "Well, I don't think that's very funny!" Tammy exclaimed. "Here, let's see what she wrote about you guys!" she said as she began shuffling through the pages, only to pick one up almost immediately. "Okay, IQ, listen to this! 'Tammy's husband, Ian Smits, came out to live with us too, since he had bought the apartment house we would be living in. He was a nutty man who didn't quite have all his screws tight-"

"Wait a minute!" IQ yelled.

"Wait, I'm not done," Tammy replied as she continued to read. "'However, IQ, as he liked to be called, was a very nice guy once you got past the myriad of stupid, inane comments he often made on a daily basis.'"

"That's it! We've gotta get rid of this thing!" IQ yelled as Shelley laughed.

"Oh, come on, where's your sense of humor?" Shelley laughed.

"Oh, just wait until we find something about you," Tammy said as she and IQ shuffled through the papers. Finally, Tammy picked one up and gave it to Shelley.

Shelley cleared her throat and began to read. "'The happiest day of my life will always be the one on which I laid eyes on the love of my life, Shelley Ombrase," Shelley paused for a moment before she moved on, "a wonderfully talented performer. Her singing sounded like a choir of angels. Her dancing moved and flowed like a beautiful piece of poetry, so it was a small wonder that-" Shelley stopped for a second before saying, "Where's page twelve?"

"I got it!" Tammy exclaimed, waving it in the air. She looked at it. "What did that page end with?"

"A small wonder that…" Shelley began.

"A small wonder that she became such a big ham that you could bake her in honey," Tammy completed the sentence.

"Well, I don't think that's very funny!" Shelley exclaimed, obviously taken aback. "We've gotta get rid of this thing!"

xxx

Amber walked into the apartment, arms laden with bags, only to pause when she saw Shelley, Tammy and IQ sitting around a fire.

"Why do you guys have a fire on such a nice day?" Amber asked as she put the bags down.

"Oh, we just thought it would help us relax," Tammy said.

"Yeah, there's nothing like a good book and an open fire," IQ added.

"Don't you mean a good book in an open fire?" Shelley laughed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Amber asked.

"We've re-titled your novel _Forever Ember_," Tammy replied.

"You didn't!" Amber yelled.

"We sure did," Shelley answered. "We found your novel in the window shade."

"Well, what a bunch of snoopers," Amber sniffed. "If I'd known what kind of people I was dealing with, I'd have made a carbon copy." Amber smiled, then continued, "Fortunately, I do know the kind of people I'm dealing with, so I made a carbon and sent it to Doubleday yesterday!"

xxx

"Darn it!" Amber yelled as she stormed into the apartment.

"Don't tell me you've been down there all this time waiting for the mailman," Shelley commented as she read the paper.

"You'd think that when he knows that I'm expecting a letter, he'd be early just this once!" Amber huffed, just as the doorbell rang. Amber opened the door to reveal the mailman holding out an envelope and clipboard toward her.

"Registered letter," he said.

"Oh!" Amber said as she took the letter and signed for it. The mailman tipped his hat to her and walked off down the hall. Amber closed the door, turned around and read the return address. "It's from Doubleday!" she exclaimed as she ripped open the envelope and read the letter that was inside.

"They didn't!" Shelley exclaimed.

"Oh, didn't they?" Amber grinned. "They loved it and they sent me a hundred dollar advance!"

xxx

It was a week later. Amber was back at her typewriter when the door opened and Shelley walked in, followed by Tammy and IQ and a tall, white-haired man with a mustache and a beard.

"Oh, hi!" Amber exclaimed as she pulled a sheet from the typewriter. "You're just in time to see me finish my second novel! It's about a young Cuban boy who escapes the sugar plantation he lives on to become a singer! I call it _Sugarcane Mutiny_!"

"Oh, Amber, speaking of your writing," Shelley said, gesturing to the white-haired man, "This is Jim Thompson. He's an editor from Doubleday and he'd like to talk to you."

"It's very nice to meet you, Miss Von Tussle," Thompson said. "I usually don't come out to see the authors like this, but in this case, I thought I should make an exception."

"Oh, really?" Amber smiled.

"Yes. You see, I was worried that you might get the wrong idea from the letter we sent you and I just wanted to clear it up," Thompson explained. "You see, I was worried that you might think that we were just going to print your novel all by itself."

Amber's smile began to fade. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, we wanted to use your novel in a chapter in a book about writing," Thompson said.

Amber's smile came back immediately. "Oh, that's fine!" she exclaimed.

"You didn't let me finish," Thompson continued. "The title of the chapter that your novel would be in is 'Don't let this happen to you!'"

Fortunately, Shelley was quick enough to catch Amber as Amber fainted dead away.


End file.
